As the religion of israel

1. Ever since Josephus + defined the constitution of Israel as a No importance attaches, of course, to the statements of 2 Mac 2° about Jeremiah’s concealing of the Tabernacle (1), the Ark, and the Altar of Incense in a cave of Mt. Nebo. tc. Apion. ii. 16 [Niese, #7. Josephi Opera, v. p. 75, § 164 f.)3 Some entrusted the government of the State to a single person, others to a few, others to the whole body of the people ; whereas our lawgiver turned his thoughts to none of those methods, but, if we might use a somewhat bold expression, rew up a politi- cal constitution in the form of a theveracy, assigning the rule and power to God.’ The whole manner of expression adopted by Josephus shows that in using the word ‘theocracy’ he is conscious of having coined a new term. See also art. THE- ocracy, above, p. 337. 630 RELIGION OF ISRAEL ‘theocracy,’ or ‘rule by God,’ this term has been repeated over and over, and its use has been ex- tended even to the political and religious system introduced by Moses. As a ‘theocracy’ the re- ligion founded by him has been represented as distinguished from all others; that is to say, the constitution was so arranged that all the organs of government were without any independent powers, and had simply to announce and to execute the will of God as declared by priests and prophets or reduced to writing as a code of Laws. This ideal was illustrated by the action of Gideon when (Jg 8%") he refused the monarchical dignity for himself and his son on the ground that ‘Jahweh shall rule over you.’ On the other hand, accord- ing to the view represented in 1 S 8! 1"® and ch. 12, the people wickedly ignored the idea of the theocracy when they demanded a king from Samuel: ‘It is not thee that they have rejected,’ says God to Samuel (1S 87), ‘but they have re- jected me, that I should no longer be king over them.’ Is there not here a perfectly serious claim put forward on behalf of the theocracy, and is not this form of government put forward as the only legitimate one? That is so. But this does not represent the view taken in the earlier monarchical period,—which sees in the monarchy a beneficent institution for the deliverance of the people (1S 916), —but that of the later centuries, after people had had unhappy experiences of the monarchy, and especially after they had come to lay upon it the blame for the religious and moral degeneration of the nation, even for the destruction of the State. But for the time of Moses the conception ‘theo- cracy’ cannot be taken account of, for the sufficient reason that at that time it is impossible to speak of any constitution at all as in existence. All through the period of the Judges, and in part even under Saul, the tribes lived each their own life; it was at most only for the settling of processes of law that they needed a kind of supreme authority, and this latter function was discharged by the heads of clans and families—of course not, however, upon the basis of written laws, but of usage and custom. It is true that common pressure by foes had at times the effect of bringing about a coalition, not perhaps of all, but of a number of tribes; but even then human leaders could not be dispensed with. That in all this an important réle was played by religion we shall see presently (see p. 635°f.). But for a ‘theocracy’ in the form defined by Josephus there is no room here. Scope was found for it only when, after the loss of political independence, national interests receded into the background and the interests of the cultus assumed on that account all the more prominence. So it was in the programme for the future sketched by Ezekiel (chs. 40-48), where the partition of the soil of the country is moulded upon the sacredness of the temple and its surround- ings, and where the ‘prince’ (nds?; not ‘ king’) has scarcely any more important duty than to make careful provision for the public sacrifices. The complete realization of the ‘theocracy’ was next undertaken by the Priests’ Code. Here everything, even civil and criminal law, is looked at from the religious standpoint. ‘The outward sway is in the hands of the foreigner, but what is left of the ancient national life presents itself in the form of a priestly State; the insignia of royalty—diadem and purple—are now assigned to the spiritual head, the high priest. In carrying back the theocracy to Moses, Josephus has accordingly been guilty of a glaring anachronism. But those go to the opposite ex- treme who admit that Moses proclaimed Jalweh as the God of Israel, but deny anything beyond this, and east doubt in particular upon any funda- RELIGION OF ISRAEL mental act of his which could be spoken of as a real founding of the religion of Israel. Every- thing of this kind related in the middle books of the Pentateuch is regarded by them at best as a late theological misunderstanding of some- thing quite different, but most frequently as pure invention in the interests of religious ideas which had not their development till centuries after wards. Here, again, we shall do well first of ali to look at the tradition itself. 2. In all the Pentateuchal sources, without ex- ception, there is a uniform tradition to the effect that the central place amongst the incidents at Sinai is occupied by the concluding of a bértth (na, commonly rendered covenant’). What this means may be readily learned from a brief ex- amination of the usage of the word bérith. Aiter the thoroughgoing investigations of J. P. Valeton and R. Kraetzschmar,+ there can be no doubt that bérith belongs primarily to the secular vocabulary, and means ‘cutting in pieces,’ namely, of one or more sacrificial victims (ef. Gn 15°, where God, according to the narrative of the Jahwist in v.’, accommodates Himself to this practice; and Jer 3418), that the parties to an agreement might ie between the pieces and invoke upon themselves the fate of the animals in the event of their bein guilty of a breach of their oath. For every bérit. consisted partly of an oath which defined the obligation taken upon oneself, partly of a curse invoked on oneself as the penalty of violating this oath.t The religious is naturally distinguished from the secular use of the word bérith by the fact that God cannot be thought of in the same way as a man who enters into an agreement or covenant with other men, the two parties having exactly the same stand- ing, with their mutual rights and obligations ae defined. Hence the religious béritA always stan primarily for a Divine order or arrangement§ which takes its rise without the co-operation of man or, to be more precise, of the people of Israel, and yet is unconditionally binding upon the latter. The duties of the people have, it is true, promises— that is, so to speak, a self-pledging of Himself by God—corresponding to them, and thus there exists so far a mutual relationship. But, however the statements contained in the different sources of the Pentateuch may vary in laying stress now upon the Divine promises and now upon the duties resting on men, it is always the will and determina- tion of God that accounts for the origin and the character of the bérith. Hence the usual render- ing of bérith, namely ‘covenant,’ ought to be avoided as incorrect and misleading. It has already been remarked that a//J the sources of the Pentateuch assume that at Sinai a bérith in the sense just described was solemnly enacted by God, and that henceforward it was upon this bérith that the intimate relation between Jahweh, as the God of Israel, and His people was based. According to the Jahwist, the sacramental com- ‘Bedeutung und Stellung des Wortes bérith im Priester- codex’ (ZATW xii. 1ff.); ‘in den jahwistischen und deuter- onomistischen Stiicken des Hexateuchs sowie .: den verwandten historischen Biichern’ (ib, 224 ff.); ‘bei dex Frepheten und in den Ketubim’ (ib. xiii. 245 ff.). + Die Bundesvorstellung im Alten Testament, Marburg, 1896. { Alin to this are the certainly ancient forms in which a curse is conditionally invoked, namely, by sending round pieces of a corpse (Jy 1929) or of some sacrificial animal (18117). In every instance these pieces have the significance of an ‘ oath-offering.’ The formula ‘so shall it be done to his cattle’ in the latter passage is in all probability a toning down of an original ‘so shall it be done to him.’ Whether the blood of the animals in question was used for the performance of sacred rites on the occasion of concluding a bérith (as, for instance, among the Arabs it is sprink!ed on seven stones), is doubtiul ; it is expressly wit- nessed to only in Ex 248, § The LX gives proper expression to this condition of thingt by rendering the Heb. bérith not by cuvOian (‘agreement, ‘covenant’, but by dsebjxn (‘ arrangement’). ts = 2 Ya elt ty = 4 a © me oa SSeS RELIGION OF ISRAEL RELIGION OF ISRAEL 631 munion was established by sprinkling with blood both the altar and the people, the ‘ book of laws of the covenant’ [this is the meaning here of bérith] being read by Moses to the people between these two acts (Ex 2448), In v.° there comes next an account [probably by E] of a meal partaken of by the representatives of the people before God. his meal can be understood only as a sacrificial one, such as, for instance, we read of again in the case of Jacob and Laban (Gn 31) after their com- pact at Mount Gilead. So also the Deuteronomist and the Priests’ Code speak very frequently of the bérith which God through Moses gave to the people at Horeb (or Sinai). Even if they do not refer expressly to a covenantal ceremony, they certainly resuppose what is related in the older sources. t is an established fact for them that there was a solemn proclamation of the Divine will by God to Moses, and through him to the people. Is all this now to be set down as fiction—a carry- ing back of much later theological conceptions and terminology to a time for which no real tradition was any longer extant? This is a view to which the present writer cannot assent, having regard to either external or internal evidence. Under the head of external evidence we must reckon not only the strength and unanimity of the tradition, which it would need the very strongest reasons to set aside, but also the narrative of Ex 244%, The deviation here from the traditional rites at sacrifices and covenants, which meet us elsewhere, testifies at least to the high antiquity of the record. But, even if the attempt to prove its historicity should have to be abandoned, there remain weighty internal reasons for holding that it is impossible to set aside as pure fiction the assumption of a bérith at Sinai as a historical incident. It was undoubtedly with very heterogeneous elements that Moses had to set to work in accom- plishing his mission. The familiar genealogy of the tribes of Israel makes an emphatic—no doubt, historically justified—distinction between tribes of full and of half blood, the latter being represented as descended from female slaves (Bilhah and Zilpah, Gn 30°). Moreover, Ex 12% (cf. also Nu 114) speaks of a non-Israelite ‘mixed multitude’ which attached itself to Israel at the Exodus. Yet Moses must have succeeded in imparting a certain unity to all these diverse elements, in controlling them by his will, and in planting amongst them a variety of fruitful germs of religious and legal ordinances. And although even after the immigra- tion into Canaan it is still far from possible (see above, p. 630) to speak of an Israelitish State, yet a historical document of the first rank, like the Song of Deborah, shows how in the beginning of the period of the Judges the majority of the tribes were permeated with a strong feeling of their unity under the leadership of the God of Israel. Particularly worthy of notice is the express manner in which war (which, as was pointed out above [p. 621°], even in the pre-Mosaic -tage of religion had the closest connexion with the cultus) is now placed in relation to Jahwism. After the defeat of the Amalekites, Moses is commanded to write down a formula expressive of the Divine curse on Amalek (Ex 17} [E]). Thereupon he erects an altar and calls it Jahweh-nissi (‘Jahweh is my banner’), ‘for Jahweh hath war with the Amale- kites to all generations.’ Primarily, then, this war It cannot, indeed, be denied that it is hard to think of 74 people sitting down to a meal on the top of the mountain, and that all difficulty is removed if we accept the suggestion of Riedel (SK, 1903, p. 161ff.), that 3Ay) (‘and they drank’) is corrupted from oR) (‘and they cast themselves down’), and that 7?2N4 (‘and they ate’) was interpolated after ii) had tound ite way into the text. is not the affair of the people but of their God. The battles which led to the conquest of Canaan (Nu 21%), like those which had still to be fought by David in the struggle which freed the land from the yoke of the Philistines (1S 187 25%), are included under the title ‘wars of Jahweh.’ See vol. iv. p. 896°. Would all this be conceivable if the proclama- tion of Jahweh as the God of Israel—the founding of the Jahweh religion—had taken place, so to speak, fortuitously, by the fiadonbal passing of the name ‘Jahweh’ from mouth to mouth? In- stead of anything of this kind, we get the strongest impression that the further development of the religion of Israel during the period of the Judges and of the monarchy was the result of some occur- rence of a fundamental kind of whose solemnity and binding force and character the whole nation retained a lively recollection. And this occurrence can have been nothing but the solemn proclaiming of the God who had just manifested Himself in wondrous wise as the Helper and Deliverer of the people upon a definite occasion, and in the binding of the people to do His will and to worship Him alone. Every one of the numerous allusions (whether in the Pentateuchal sources, the Pro- phets, or the Psalms) to the mighty acts of Jahweh at the Exodus, how with a strong hand and a stretched-out arm He brought the hosts of Israel out of the house of bondage, held back the waves of the Red Sea from Israel but plunged the chariots and the horsemen of Pharaoh into the waters,—every one of these allusions is at the same time an allusion to the days of Sinai, when for the first time these mighty acts of Jahweh were brought to the consciousness of the people in their true greatness, and extolled accordingly, and made the occasion of a solemn confession of Jahweh as the God of Israel and a solemn binding of the people to do His will. The foregoing observations have at the same time furnished the answer to the question as to the essential character of Jahwism as a name for the special relation between Jahweh and Israel. If we had to do with nothing more than the mutual relations between a particular god and a particular people, we should be standing simply upon the soil of a national religion such as prevailed amongst heathen peoples as well. Moab is called ‘the people of Chemosh’ (Nu 21”) just as Israel is ‘ the people of Jahweh’; Moab likewise felt itself bound to the worship of this its national god, and expected powerful aid from Chemosh in return, particularly in matters of war. And if such aid was not ren- dered, this was ascribed not to inadequate power on the part of the god, but to the fact that ‘Chemosh was angry with his land’ (Mesha’s inscription, 1. 5f.). The presuppositions appear thus to be pre- cisely the same in Moab as in Israel. And yet is it possible to conceive of a Moabite reflecting on the origin of the worship of Chemosh or tracing it back to a 6érith between that god and the Moabites? On the contrary, none of them dreamt of anything but that the special relation between god and people had subsisted from the first, nor did any one doubt that between the two there was a blood relationship in virtue of which the god would as a matter of course take the part of his people, without any necessary regard to ethi cal considerations. He upon whom, according te Of., on the above, the admirable discussion by F. Giese brecht in Die Geschichtlichkeit des Sinwbundes, Kénigsberg, 1900; on ‘Jahweh’s relation to the people of Israel according to the ancient Israelitish conception’ in general, see Sellin in the Neue Kirchliche Zeitschrift, 1894, pp. 316ff., 376 ff. [also published separately under the title Beitrage zur israel. und jidischen Rajigions eschichte, Heft 1, Leipzig, 1896] ; Wildeboer, Jahvedienst en Vo Groningen, 1898 [(Germaa tr., Freiburg, 1899]. eligie in Israé 632 —, primitive Semitic notions, the duty of blood- revenge lay, did not first inquire whether the bloody expiation was justifiable on moral grounds as well. Blood demands blood: this principle held good for the god as much as for every individual among the people. From all this it is clear that from the very first there was a far-reaching difference between the national religion of Israel and other national religions. At its very foundation the religion of Israel made a notable advance beyond the naive, purely naturalistic basis which we have just noted in the religion of Moab. J¢ was not Israel that first chose Jahweh, but Jahweh that chose Israel. Their mutual relation does not therefore rest upon blood relationship,—such a notion is sufficiently contradicted by the circumstance that at the time of the Exodus a community of the same blood, or a nation, was not yet in existence,—but upon the free determination of a mighty God. This de- termination, however, was no arbitrary one; it sprang from the fundamental attributes of this God, namely righteousness and mercy. He saw the misery of the people as they pined under cruel and yet wholly undeserved oppression, and was filled with compassion for them; He determined to deliver them, and with a strong hand He carried this purpose to a victorious issue. The religious ideas which flow from this did not first originate, as some in recent times never weary of assert- ing, as a product of the ‘ethical monotheism’ of the proper they already lay to hand for the Israel of Mosaic times. Righteousness and mercy are essentially moral qualities. If they were the motive for the choice and the deliverance of Israel, the religion derived from them bore from the first an ethical stamp in quite a different sense from anything that had ever been conceivable in a purely national religion. It is thoroughly ap- propriate that the Deuteronomist in a number of passages should urge gratitude as the leading motive for love to God and obedience to His com- mandments. But this, again, is no naturalistic but a specifically ethical motive, and, as such, could be appreciated even by the contemporaries of Moses, —And, finally, it was self-evident that the God who in His very choice and deliverance of Israel had exhibited moral attributes, would require from the people the same qualities on which His relation to them was based, Hence we are quite entitled to claim—not ethical monotheism in the strict sense of the term, but—ethical henotheism for the time of Moses. And so at last the way in which this God fulfils His promise, putting the mighty host of Egypt to shame before a petty people of shepherds, gave occasion for the triumphant question: ‘ Who is like thee, O Jahweh, among the gods; who is like thee, glorious in loftiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders?’ But this power of His is not thought of as mere brute force arbitrarily exer- cised, but once more as serving moral ends. In this lies the pledge of its final triumph over all unrighteousness and impiety, whether within or outside the people of Israel. It may be that this idea was not yet realized with perfect clearness in the time of Moses, that all its consequences were not yet deduced. But in germ it was already there as certainly as faith in the power of right, or desire that it should always prevail, is implanted by nature in the hearts of men in Gerieral The religion of Israel was able from the first to supply nourishment to this faith as no other national religion could. Those who deny this, and who recognize everywhere simply development in a straight line from crude or at los naive naturalism to more and more purified moral conceptions, quite So also Ezk 165 in a striking comparison. RELIGION OF ISRAEL RELIGION OF ISRAEL overlook the circumstance that their contention is opposed by demonstrably historical facts. Epocn- making religious ideas generally come upon the scene in full strength and purity; it is only in course of fuither development that these products of religious creative genius, or, better, of Divine impulse, are corrupted and disfigured by the intru- sion of vulgar human ideas and selfish interests. Such was the fate of the religion of Jesus Christ in the Roman Church with its popes and monks; and the same thing happened to many of the great fundamental ideas of the Reformation at the hands of Protestant scholasticism. And we are quite safe to assume something of the same kind in the process of the development of Jahwism. The great fundamental ideas upon which its institu- tion rests were often forced into the background during the wandering period of the people’s his- tory and in the time of endless struggles for national existence under the Judges. Besides, as was pointed out already (see p. 615 f.), these ideas still continued for long to 6 supplemented by powerful remnants of the Polydemonism common to the Semites. But they did not die out for all this, and, when in the 8th cent. B.C. they were put forward by Amos and others with the greatest clearness and precision and urged upon the con- science of the people, these prophets had a perfect right to claim that they were making no new and unheard-of demands, but only proclaiming what from Sinai downwards had been recognized as a fact: ‘A God of right is Jahweh; blessed are all so that wait on him’ (Is 3018), e insist, then, wen a bérith between Jahweh and the people of Israel as the starting-point of Jahwism, and at the same time as the source of its peculiar character. This of itself sets aside the view recently maintained that there was actually a bérith pense at Sinai—not, however, between Jahweh and Israel, but between the various Israel- itish tribes. we are told, that misunderstood this, or arbitrarily transformed its meaning to suit their purposes. This hypothesis might perhaps be sufficient to account for the coalition of heterogeneous elements so as to form a nation. But it is wholly inade- quate to explain how it came about that their common religion imparted to this new confedera- tion a wholly peculiar stamp, so that this people of nomads afterwards completely absorbed the advanced civilization of Canaan, instead of being subdued by it. iv. THE STAMP OF JAHWISM ON OUTWARD ORDINANCES IN THE TIME OF MOsSES.—By ‘out- ward ordinances’ we understand not only usages connected with worship in the widest sense, but also the form given by religion to the life of the people in all its aspects. As to both these points, the materials for arriving at a certain conclusion are very meagre, since no account can be taken of the elaborate priestly and ritual enactments of the Priests’ Code, which are merely the theories of later centuries. 1. Even the question whether Moses instituted For instance by Schwally, who writes (Semit. Kriegsalter- timer, i. p. 2): Probably some Israelitish tribes entered into a covenant relation with Midian, in connexion with which the national god of the more powerful of the contracting parties was called to watch over the oath.’ Afterwards, however, we are told (p. 3): ‘The actual course of things faded gradually from men’s memory, and the notion could establish itself that at Sinai what was concluded was not a covenant between Israel and Midian under the protection of Jahweh, but simply a covenant of Jahweh with His chosen people.’— Different, again, is the judgment of Eerdmans (in Z'heol. Tijdschrift, xxxvii. p- 19ff.). According to him, the bérith at Sinai consisted in the union of a number of nomadic clans into a tribal con- federation, accompanied by the eh of Jahweh as tht god to whom part of those tribes considered that they owed theiz deliverance from Egypt. It was only the later theologians, — a RELIGION OF ISRAEL RELIGION OF ISRAEL 633 a priestly order at all is one which cannot be answered offhand from the early sources. He himself exercises priestly functions on the occasion of the concluding of the bérith (Ex 244"), and as a medium of oracles in the Tent of Meeting (337-). This is in harmony with the general presupposition that the founder and mediator of the Sinai religion was the prototype of both of what were afterwards the most important organs of this religion—the priests and the prophets (cf., for the latter, Dt 18% 34 and Hos 12#4(@9)), Indeed it is only thus that the habit can be explained of tracing back to his per- sonality ald codifications of law, even those affecting the ritual. But the early sources know nothing of Moses having further entrusted to his brother Aaron alone the discharge of priestly functions. Aaron is indeed called in Ex 4" ‘the Levite,’ which means in all probability ‘the priest’ (for, so far as the tribe was concerned, Moses was also a ‘Levite’), but it is extremely questionable whether this designation really emanates from an early source. In any case, nothing is there related of him except that he served Moses as speaker in dealing with the people and with Pharaoh (Ex 4i4f. 27.30 51 ete.), and that he supported him during the battle with the Amalekites (17':). Even in connexion with the idolatrous worship of the golden calf (Ex 32'-) there is no mention of priestly functions or prerogatives belonging to Aaron. On the contrary, the assistants of Moses at the covenantal sacrifices of Ex 24° are simply young men of the children of Israel, while the ardian of the Tent of Meeting is the Ephraimite oshua (Ex 331), who frequently sa else- where also as servant and attendant of Moses. Leaving Aaron, then, out of the sae we have still indeed, one passage from E (Ex 32”) in which, although the text in its present form is plainly mutilated, it is related that Moses awarded the priesthood to the tribe of Levi in recognition ef their fidelity on the occasion of a revolt of the ae But, seeing that in the same chapter we ave a parallel narrative to quite a different effect from the pen of the Jahwist, 1t is impossible to say whether in Ex 32% we have a strictly historical narrative or merely an attempt to ees a his- torical explanation of the origin of the Levitical Beetkood, The story of the covenantal sacrifices (Ex 24*.) uite gives the impression that Moses simply fol- owed long-established usage. And this will be true to the condition of things then as well as during the whole of the subsequent period. Not legal prescriptions, but old familiar custom, decided the practice followed in matters affecting the cultus. Even in the monarchical period priests were still unneeded for the offering of sacrifice ; the same usage as had been followed for other gods or ‘demons’ was equally capable of applica- tion to the cult of Jahweh. This does not forbid us to hold that certain ceremonial enactments emanated from Moses, and were orally handed down under hisname. But what was their precise character we are unable to decide, any more than the question whether he is to be regarded as the originator of a particular form of oracular com- inunication. At all events, it is worthy of note that in Am 5 (perhaps also Jer 7”) the existence of the practice of sacrifice during the wilderness wanderings is flatly denied. This pees can hardly be explained, with Marti (Gesch. der israel. Religion4, p. 71), to mean that, while sacrifices to Jahweh were abandoned, those were hapa offered which were peculiar to families and clans, but were not meant for the God of the whole body. Marti urges that the different tribes and clans ' According to Stade and others, the figure of Aaron is atterly unknown to the older stratum of J. H Sane might have retained their tribal and househ« ld gods without seeing in this any repudiation of the claims of Jahweh. But, while it is not impossible that a syncretism of this kind still continued to pre- vail for a considerable time, it must always have appeared to the chosen representatives of Jahwism as a culpable abuse. 2. As to religious festivals, the only one that can be taken into account for the Mosaic period is the Passover (see above, p. 621>f.). The other principal festivals, in the form in which we make their acquaintance in OT tradition, point by their agrarian character to a Canaanite origin. 3. As in the cultus of the Mosaic age, so also in the social life of Israel the controlling factor was not a body of definite prescriptions, but the power of custom—custom, it is true, upon which from the first an ever-increasing influence was exerted by the religious uniqueness of Jahwism. When any shameful act was condemned by the formula ‘It is not wont so to be done’ (Gn 347, 2S 13!2), there was assuredly in the background the thought ‘because it is unworthy of Israel and their God, because it is an abomination in the sight of Jahweh which He will not let go unpunished.’ Here again the possibility must be recognized that Moses him- self, in the course of his long-continued judicial activity (cf., on this point, the very instructive narrative of Ex 18- [K}), especially at Kadesh or ‘En-mishpat, laid the foundation of many usages both in civil and criminal law, nay, that not a few of the enactments afterwards codified in the Book of the Covenant go back directly to him. But in this matter, again, we are without any precise knowledge of details. 4. There is one ee however, which we cannot pass by in silence. If none of the rest of the fagel contents of the Pentateuch can be with certainty traced back to Moses, must not at least some form of the Decalogue be attributed to him —having regard to the strength and the unanimity of the tradition which require this assumption ? Now, the ‘unanimity’ of the tradition must be left out of the question so long as it is still dis- puted whether in addition to the two Elohistic [E] or, according to others, Deuteronomistic recensions of the Decalogue in Ex 20 and Dt 5, we have not a Jahwistic one in Ex 34'+°6. The greater anti- uity of the latter appears to be supported by the Tact that it contains almost exclusively cere- monial, not yet ethical enactments; these last, it is alleged, could not have originated in this form except as a deposit of the Prophetic current of ideas. But this Jahwistic Decalogue is perhaps nothing more than an appearance. If the Jahwist had essentially the same Decalogue as the Elohist, the redactor could not possibly, after it had been given in Ex 20, have introduced it once more in Ex 34, and so he filled up the consequent gap with ceremonial prescriptions which can be recognized at the first glance as parallels to the laws of the Book of the Covenant. Hence the question still remains whether some form of the Decalogue may not be traced back to Moses. That this form was extremely brief and concise This, as is well known, was already maintained by Goethe in his essay ‘ Das Zweitafelgesetz’ (1773), and is held at present by the majority of critics. Regarding the Decalogue of Ex 20 and Dt 5, the view has come to eee thanks to Kuenen, Stade, Cornill, etc., that it belonged to the Judwan recension of the Elohist [E2]; so also Staerk (Das Deuteronomium, Leipzig, 1894), who maintains, further, that the Decalogue of E? is dis- persed throughout the so-called Book of the Covenant. On the other hand, according to Meisner (Der Dekalog, Halle, 1893) and Baentsch (‘Exodus u. Leviticus’ in Nowack’s Hdkom., Gottingen, 1900), the present form of the Decalogue emanates from the Deuteronomic pen (D), and was only subsequently transferred from Deuteronomy to Ex 20. Likewise Marti (Gesch, der israel. Religion 4, p. 174) holds that the Decalogue was ‘in any case drawn up in the [th cent., perhaps in the circles influenced by Isaiah.’ 634 RELIGION OF ISRAEL may be at once assumed. This conclusion is favoured even by the very striking difference in extent between the two tables of the Law: the first (namely the five Commandments, according to the method of reckoning adopted by the Reformed Churches, down to and including that of respect to parents) containing 146 words, the second only 26. Accordingly, the whole of the reasons assigned for obedience in the first five Commandments may be pronounced later additions. In this way two very considerable difficulties are removed in a very simple fashion. These are (1) the great difference in regard to the motives urged for obedience to the Sabbath-command, and (2) the Deuteronomistic colouring which, as we have seen, has led many to aseribe the whole to the 7th century. For this colouring does not affect the brief enunciations, but, above all, the motives assigned, But it may still be asked, Does not so fully- developed an ethical system underlie even the Com- mandments themselves that one must hesitate to give the Decalogue its place at the head of the whole development? We should allow full weight to this objection if the standpoint of the Ten Com- mandments were beyond doubt and exclusively an ethical one. That this is the case, appears self- evident to ws who from our infancy are taught and accustomed to apply a purely ethical standard, and to discover in the Commandments a guide to true piety and morality. But it is not difficult to show that originally it was not the question of morals but of regard to rights that occupied the foreground. Add the Commandments may readily be subsumed under the prohibition: ‘ Thou shalt not do violence to (1) what belongs to God (His sole right to worship, His superiority to any earthly form, His name, His day [as the type of all His other ‘holy ordinances’], His representatives) ; (2) what belongs to thy neighbour (his life [as his most precious possession], his wife [as next in preciousness], his goods and chattels, his honour).’ It is only in the last of the Commandments that another point of view makes its appearance, namely, in the prohibition to touch even in thought the property of one’s neighbour. Thus the climax is reached of the ascending scale which presents itself in the arrangement of the Commandments of the second table—in the advance from sins of act to sins of word, and finally to sins of thought. The correctness of the view which emphasizes the non-ethical aspect of the Decalogue is specially evi- | dent in connexion with the prohibition of adultery. The object is not to keep the youth or the married man from immorality in general, as our catechisms are wont to explain the matter,t but to ward off attack from one of the most important of a neigh- bour’s rights of propery It is only in this sense that the notion of adultery is known to the ancient Hebrew mind; while, on the other hand, no limits are placed upon a married man’s sexual intercourse with female slaves. In like manner, the seduction or violation of a virgin was plainly regarded in the earliest times more as a damage to one’s rights (notably, for instance, in the way of lowering the selling price of a daughter) than as a moral transgression. In view of all this there would be no valid reason for refusing to attribute to Moses himself a primi- tive concise form of the Decalogue, were it not Noteworthy indications pointing to this view are already supplied by A. Menzies (Sermons on the Ten Commandments, London, 1888), according to whom the Decalogue belongs to the age of the Prophets, and contains the fundamental prin- ciples of social life. t So, ¢e.g., Luther: ‘ Wir sollen Gott fiirchten und lieben, dass wir keusch und ziichtig leben in Worten und Werken, und ein jeglicher sein Gemahl liebe und ehre’ (‘ We are to fear and love God by living chaste and modest in words and deeds, and every man ig to love and honour his wife’). RELIGION OF ISRAEL for the formidable difficulty presented by the pro- hibition of the use of images. Down to the 8th cent. no one appears to be acquainted with se categorical a command that images of Jahweh are not to be made. Are we to hold that originally another commandment stood in the place of this one, or that Moses promulgated not ten but seven Commandments? The latter position has recently been maintained by Eerdmans. He refers the command against images to the 7th cent., but seven of the commands of the Decalogue to the time of Moses, the first of these being ‘I, Jahweh, am your God.’ We are largely in accord with Eerdmans when he discovers no such affinity between the Decalogue and the great Prophets that it must be regarded as a product of the current of ideas initiated by them; we are at one with’ him also in holding that the different commands and prohibitions have not an absolute but only a relative scope. In this last respect, however, he goes too far when he maintains that the only obligations meant to be enjoined (e.g. in the matter of the prohibition of killing) are to- wards fellow-countrymen, and when he transforms the ‘coveting’ of the tenth Commandment into appropriating of ownerless property, alleging that in the OT it is only the act and not the disposition that constitutes sin. It has been rightly urged by Wildehoer + against Eerdmans that in this way the deeper moral sense of the Decalogue is de- yvraded, and the whole reduced to a mere scheme ministering to the utilitarian necessities of the common life of Bedawin: The result of the above discussion is that the Mosaie origin of some rudimentary form of the Decalogne (apart from the command against images) does not appear to be absolutely excluded, but that here again we must be content to refrain from pronouncing a more definite judgment. In any case, the religious and moral significance and the germinal power—we might almost say the power of expansion—of the ideas of the Decalogue are not lessened if we must place it, not at the first beginnings but in the later stages of development of the religion of Israel. Even then, in view of its aims, and above all in view of its structure, which in the first table shows an advance from the general and more spiritual to the more concrete — | and external duties, while in the second table the ~ opposite course is followed, it remains a religious document which has a good title to be regarded, even yy the Christian Church at the present day, as a kind of Magna Charta for the guidance of ina religious life. III. THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL IN CANAAN DURING THE PRE-PROPHETIC PERIOD.{ i. THE SOURCES.—For the periods with which we have hitherto been dealing we have had toe content ourselves with backward inferences from later sources, but now we have at our command records of considerable compass, which enable us | to take a reliable glance at the religious and moral conditions of the period of the judges and of the early monarchy. The circumstance is immaterial that the records in question, apart from the ve ancient Song of Deborah, did not assume their present form till a considerable time after the events (somewhere from about the 10th to the middle of the 8th cent. B.c.). For, in the first ©Oorsprong en beteekenis van de tien woorden’ (in Theol. Tijdschrift, xxxvii. p. 18 ff.). + ‘De Dekalog’ (in Theol. Studién, 1903, p. 109 ff.). { Cf. Ch. Piepenbring, ‘La religion des Hébreux & l’époque des juges’ in Revue de U Histoire des Religions, t. xxvii. 1; F. Seyring, Die altisrael. Religion in den ‘ Heldengeschichten’ des Richterbuchs, Hamburg, 1892; C. H. Toy, ‘The pre-Prophetia — Religion of Israel’ in New World, 1896, p. 123 ff. ose eS Se Ne SO ee RELIGION OF ISRAEL RELIGION OF ISRAEL 635 place, all the evidence is in favour of the sup- position that during the whole of this period the moral and religious viewpoint was a fixed one; and, secondly, the date when the traditions were finally committed to writing must not be con- founded with the date when the oral tradition became fixed. Thus the conditions underlying the patriarchal narratives as presented by the Jahwist cannot be brought down at latest beyond the time of Saul, even although the main part of the Jahwistic written source was not composed till about B.c. 850. The same remark applies to the so-called hero-narratives of the Book of Judges, which occupy themselves with the six ‘great judges’ (Ehud, Deborah, Barak, Gideon, Jephthah, Samson), and to the same category with which belong also the very ancient and important narratives contained in Jg 9 and in the Appendix, chs. 17-21 (although it is true that chs. 19-21 have been subjected to a very late revision). All these written sources—after various more recent com- ponents have been sifted out—give us a true picture of the conditions that prevailed during the period prior to the advent of written pro- phecy. As a source of the first rank must be reckoned the ancient biography of Saul and David, which, now interwoven with many later—notably even Deuteronomistic—elements, is incorporated in the Books of Samuel. But what we have said is true in quite a special sense of the so-called ‘ Jerusalem source’ in 2S 9-20, which reveals so intimate an acquaintance with the course of events, and shows at the same time so delicate a psychological esti- mate of David, that in all probability it should be placed as early as the time of Solomon. So also the older components of the biography of Solomon in 1 K 1-11 contain a great variety of valuable material. And finally, from the earliest of the writing prophets, Amos and Hosea, important backward inferences may be drawn as to the con- ceptions that prevailed before their day. li. THE CONCEPTION OF GOD.—1. That even in this period we can speak at most of henotheism (see above, p. 625°f.) but not of absolute monotheism, would te sufficiently proved by the constant_in- clination of the people to Baal worship (on which see below, § iii. , “This tendency assumes, of course, a belief in the existence of Baal (or the baals). If it should be contended that this belief ought to be treated as a delusion, not shared b the proper representatives of Jahwism, but at all times strenuously combated by them, this con- tention would be opposed to a number of clear statements. What was combated at all times was the worship of Baaland of other gods, but not the belief in their existence. “When in Jg 11% Jephthah bids his messengers say to the king of the Ammonites, ‘ Wilt not thou possess that which Chemosh thy god giveth thee to possess?’ he only gives expression to a notion which was self- evident to his contemporaries and to the narrator. A similar notion underlies the language of 1S 26", where David regards banishment from the ancestral domain of Jahweh as necessitating the y Aeieee of other gods. The idea of a national god involves that the sphere of influence as well as the sphere of worship of the particular god extends only to the land of his people. Outside this other gods rule, and the man who has been driven within their sphere does well to accommodate himself to their service. It is true that the worship of a god upon foreign soil is not absolutely excliced. ate tol K 1I7 Solomon erected upon the-Mount of Olives a place of sacrifice for Chemosh, the god of the Probably, by a confusion, for Milcom, for everywhere else QOhemosh appears as the god of the Moabites. Moabites. The narrative in its present form sees in this (v.’") a lapse on the part of Solomon into idolatry, into which he was seduced by his heathen wives. But, in all probability, what is in view here is—what to the original narrator was quite an un- objectionable procedure—the erection by Solomon of a sanctuary for a Moabite wife, where even in the land of Judah she might render worship to her ancestral god. Such a desire on her part would appear to Solomon quite fair and reasonable, with- out its ever entering his mind to take part himself in this cult. Moreover, such an aberration on the part of the builder of a splendid temple for the God of the land would be absolutely inconceivable. In this connexion it may be remarked that there is scarcely room for doubt that even then a method had been discovered whereby the worship of a national god upon foreign soil was rendered pos- sible. Earth was brought from Ais land to the foreign country, in order thus to be able to offer sacrifice to him on his own soil. Thus Naaman the Syrian (2 K 5”) asks from Elisha two mules’ burden of (Israelitish) earth, because he is resolved henceforward to offer neither burnt-offering nor sacrifice to any other god but to Jahweh alone. It is quite clear that Naaman’s idea was quite in harmony with the belief of the Israelitish narrator. But, on the other hand, the conviction that the power of a national god in his own land is irresist- ible when it has been properly invoked, has very drastic testimony borne to it in 2K 3%. The ‘fierce anger’ which comes upon Israel after Mesha has sacrificed his firstborn son upon the wall (thus in the view of the besiegers) is the anger of the god of the land, Chemosh, who after such an offering cannot remain inactive, but drives the enemy out of his country. It is possible for us to explain this result very naturally on the ground that the besiegers lost all courage through fear of the supposed anger of Chemosh ; but this is by no means the view of the narrator and his contem- (a) This is the case almost exclusively in war. There the name of Jahweh is the connecting link which brings the otherwise heterogeneous elements into the closest union with one another, inspires them with enthusiasm, and leads them to victory. He is the war-God, Jahweh, whose commander-in-chief appears to Joshua in Gilgal (Jos 5'8-) ;+ who, represented by the sacred Ark (see above, p. 628 f.), causes the walls of Jericho to” fall down (Jos 6); and after the battle of Gibeon rains great stones upon the fleeing Canaanites (10). With peculiar energy the joyful confidence in Jahweh as the real leader in battle meets us in the Song of Deborah. The whole Song is meant, above all, to celebrate the praises of Jahweh (Jg 5-911), who left His dwelling-place on Sinai to hasten by Mt. Seir to the battlefield. He was the true leader in the fight, for the inhabitants of Meroz are cursed ‘ because they came not to the help of Jahweh, to the help of Jahweh among the This statement alone probably belongs to the original text; the rest here, as in 2 K 2313, is Deuteronomistic or still later expansion. The LXX has in part a different text. + The narrative now breaks off in the middle of a sentence. The close may have been deliberately suppressed because it contained a different explanation of the name ‘Gilgal’ trom that given shortly before in 5%, 636 RELIGION OF ISRAEL heroes’ (v.%); on the other hand, ‘from heaven fougbt the stars, in their courses they fought against Sisera’ (v.”°). It is specially worth noting with what force expression is given also in other passages in the Song to the thought that on such an occasion it is the unconditional duty of the different tribes to take the field with Jahweh against the common foe. Hence the panegyric on the valiant tribes which showed their willingness for this service (vv.!8, 18); and, on the other hand, the bitter scorn poured upon the dilatory ones (vy.}°>-17), And the concluding verse once more lays the strongest emphasis upon the fact that the enemies of Israel are on that very account the enemies of Jahweh, but that glory and happi- ness attend on those who choose Him— So must all thine enemies perish, O Jahweh: But those that love him are as the rising of the sun in his strength.’ The belief in a personal presence of Jahweh in decisive battles does not present itself, however, merely in highly strung poetry like the Song of Deborah. Apart from passages according to which He accompanies Israel into battle in the train of the Ark (see above, p. 628 f.), David still declares, after his first decisive victory over the Philistines : ‘Jahweh hath broken mine enemies before me as waters break through (the dam),’ 2S 5”; and before the second battle he receives from Jahweh this oracle: ‘When thou hearest the noise of marching in the tops of the baka trees, set out ; for then is Jahweh gone forth to make a slaughter in the camp of the Philistines’ (v.™). Even if many usages which Israel practised in war, and which gave to war the appearance of an uninterrupted exercise of a religious function, date from the times of Polydemonism, and were origin- ally evoked by regard to the ‘ demons’ (see above, p. 621°), there is manifestly no longer any conscious- ness of this in the period with which we are now dealing. Israel’s wars are the ‘wars of Jahweh’ (Nu 214)>~The acts of consecration and the restraints to which warriors submit themselves have regard to Jahweh. Very instructive from this point of view is the very ancient narrative of 18 21-, The priest is prepared to give the sacred bread (the so-called shewbread) to David only in case his pretended followers have kept themselves from women. David professes that it is so, and that his company set out with sacred ‘ vessels’ (i.e., probably, clothes and weapons). David thus puts aside the fear that he and his companions are wanting in the purity required towards Jahweh. It was to Him then expressly that the consecration of the warrior was due. ven in Deuteronomy (23° @°) ®) the prescriptions about maintaining cleanliness in the camp, which in all probability have a Polydemonist motive, are in v. () based simply on the ground that ‘Jahweh thy God walketh in the midst of thy camp to deliver thee and to give up thine enemies before thee; there- fore shall thy camp be holy.’ (6) Again, as regards the frequent mention of the execution of the ‘ban’ (cf. above, p. 619° f.), we find all through this period no other supposition than that the devoting of human beings and of spoil is purely for the honour of Jahweh. So in Jos 674 744. 23, and especially 1 S 158 where Samuel in the sequel executed the ‘ban’ upon the Amale- kite king Agag by hewing him to pieces ‘ before Jahweh’ (as one devoted to Jahweh) in Gilgal. (c) The circumstance that during this period the character of Jahweh as the war-God is so prominent a feature in the conception of God, explains why now, for the first time, we make acquaintance with a designation of Jahweh which, beyond doubt, is originally connected with this side of His character, namely Jahweh Zéba@ th (nix3s). RELIGION OF ISRAEL That Zéb@ 6th is the plural of za6d, ‘host,’ and thus signifies ‘hosts’ or ‘armies,’ is generally admitted. It is equally recognized that ‘Jahweh Zéb@ 6th’ is simply an abbreviation for the complete formula ‘Jahweh ’Elohé Zéb@ th, or, with the article, ‘Jahweh ’Hlohé hazg-Zéb@oth, i.e. ‘Sahweh, the God of Hosts.’+ But now, what species of hosts is meant? What was originally meant? For there is the strongest initial probability that this name of God assumed in the usage of the Prophets a more com- prehensive sense than originally belonged to it. The controversy now turns upon the question whether the primary reference in the ‘hosts’ is to hosts of ‘demons,’{ or to the heavenly hosts (i.e. the angels),§ or, finally, to the earthly hosts of Israel.|| (a) It is probable enough, in the light of what | has been formerly said, that even in the post- | Mosaic period an important réle was more or less | Or, to be more accurate, let us ask, | consciously attributed to the ‘demons’ in war as | well as elsewhere. Jabwism, Jahweh should have been treated simply, ‘Jahweh of Hosts’ in this sense should have been } employed even by the prophets without scr nay, even by preference, is inconceivable. For genuine Jahwism occupies a position of natural opposition to the faith in ‘demons,’ and hence we — have nowhere any certain trace of such a quasi- official recognition of the latter as would be implied, if the explanation we are examining were correct. — (8) On the other hand, a number of witnesses, — But that, after the adoption of . | some of them ancient, can be called in favour of | the conception of an angelic host surrounding | In this category we must not, indeed, | For ‘the whole | Jahweh. include passages like 1 kK 22%. 4 | qi . host of heaven’ which the prophet Micaiah beheld | on the right and the left of Jahweh is no more a war host than is ‘the host of the height’ in the very late passage Is 247, But in Gn 323 @) (E) the angels of God are probably thought 3, ing to a camp of war; the ‘leader of Jahweh’s host’ in Jos 5% can only mean the leader of a host of angels; and the horses and chariots of fire — round about Elisha (2 K 6”) are plainly driven by warrior angels. : (y) All this, however, does not weaken the force of the circumstance that the plural zéba@’6th, in all | the 26 passages where it occurs outside the Divine ‘| ui as belong- a 4 | | di k title, never stands for the host of heaven,1 but | always for the earthly battalions of Israel (Ex 74 1217- 41 etce., down to the late Ps 44!) ‘Thou goest not forth with our armies’); and it would surely — be strange if z¢ba@ 0th had a different meaning only in the collocation ‘ Jahweh Zéb@ 6th.’ i. Ls | | | | Of., on the different collocations of the word in the Divine | name (including its reproductions in the LXX), the exhaustive synopsis of Lohr in his Untersuchungen zum Buch Amos (Giessen, 1901), p. 37 ff. + Such a shortening must be assumed even if the fuller for- mula, as Lohr holds, took its rise only a short time before the Exile (apon the analogy of ‘ Jahweh, the God of Israel’). . t So already Wellhausen (‘Skizzen und Vorarbeiten,’ v. 77) and recently again Schwally (‘Der heilige Krieg im alten Israel,’ | ‘ial referenc rages in wa x p- 5), only that the latter will have it that the is to the ‘demons’ of war (the ‘ wild host whic along with Jahweh’). § So most, following the example of Ewald (Die Lehre der Bibel von Gott, ii. 339), who supposed the new name to have been once proclaimed by a great prophet upon the battlefield | after a sudden victory had been gained. The same interpre tion se been recently upheld afresh by Borchert in SK, 189¢ p. 619 ff. ’ || So already J. G. Herder (in Geist der hebriischen Poesie) and. others ; then, after the view which refers the expression to the hosts of angels had long been the prevailing one, KE, Schrader in Jahrbiicher fiir prot. Theologie, 1876, p. 316 ff.; and, repently, esp. Kautzsch in art. ‘Zebaoth’ in PRE 2 xvii. p. 423 ff., and in © ZATW, 1886, p. 17 ff. A 4] This, on the contrary, is everywhere represented by the singular z@b@; even in Ps 10321 and 1482 the plural form ia demonstrably due to error. P, e RELIGION OF ISRAEL RELIGION OF ISRAEL 637 But why—as Delitzsch asked years ago —is it that the Divine name Jahweh Zéb@éth is not found in the very period when we should most naturally Jook for it, namely, at the time of the Exodus and of the conflicts with the Canaanites? Instead of this, the title first meets us in 1 § 1° as an appellation of the God who dwells in Shiloh! Now, it is quite true that the complete absence of the name in the Hexateuch and the Book of Judges would be very surprising. But Klostermann ((eschichte Israels, p- 76) has made it in the highest degree probable that the name Jahweh Zéb@ 6th was, at least in the ease of the Hexateuch, removed from the text by the hand of a late redactor (perhaps from the fear of its being misunderstood in the sense of the pro- hibited star-worship). Thus in Jos 3", in place of the strange expression ‘the ark with the law of the Lord of the whole earth,’ surely there must have stood originally the usual formula ‘the ark of Jahweh of Hosts’; and in 6" the LXX (Kuply oaf8aw0) expressly witnesses to the reading Jahweh Zéba th. ; Another objection to our interpretation is raised by Borchert, who argues that all the oe in which zéba@ 6th means the hosts of Israel belong to the latest elements in the Canon (20 of them to the latest source of the Pentateuch), and, moreover, that they speak, not of military hosts but of multitudes of people in general. But the latter assertion (even apart from 1 K 25, where zi0’dth in the present Deuteronom. narrative belongs in all probability to an earlier source) is not to the point. For the latest source of the Pentateuch always thinks of the people as a military body, whether on the march or in camp, ranged in fixed order about the sanctuary (cf. weten! Nu 2). And the circumstance that in the older linguistic usage the earthly army (like the heavenly, Jos 514) is designated zaba in the singular, does not pre- yent the conclusion that the plural likewise served originally as a designation of earthly hosts. This view finds a very strong support in1 817%. When David there says to the Philistine giant, ‘I come in the name of Jahweh of Hosts, the God of the armies of Israel,’ he plainly intends by the latter addition to give his heathen opponent an authentic interpretation of the name Jahweh Zéba’éth, which, Seiad this, must have remained unintelligible to im. But, if we abide accordingly by the interpreta- tion of the title as referring to the hosts of Israel who are to put their trust in battle in Jahweh (as in Jg 5%, 28 5° 4) as their true leader and cham- pion, an additional remark requires to be made. Jahweh Zcb@éth is originally the war-God as represented by the sacred Ark.t That theark itself was a warlike shrine was shown above (p. 628 f.). But now, when we find that, of the 11 passages in the Books of Samuel where the title Jahweh Zéb@ oth oceurs, no fewer than 5 stand in a direct or indirect relation to the sacred Ark, this cannot beaccidental. Cf.15 1°: Juhweh Zéba@ 6th at Shiloh, where the Ark was then located; 44 ‘the ark of Jahweh Zcba@’éth.’ But one: of the strongest evidences may be found in 28 6% Itis true that the original text of this passage has suffered corruption, as is shown by the different form in the parallel 1 Ch 13°.¢ But to strike out the whole sentence after Zéb@ 6th is quite an un- In Rudelbach’s Zeitschrift fiir die gesammte lutherische Theologie und Kirche, 1874, p. 217 ff. + This connexion was already suggested by Vuilleumier (art. Le nom de Dieu Jahvéh-¢gebaoth’ in Revue de Théol. et de Phiios., April 1877, p. 302); it was established in detail by Kautzsch (loc. . above, p. 636 note ||). t On the difficulties presented by the present text, and the humerous attempts that have been made to emend it, cf. _ Giesebrecht, Die alttest. Schdtzung des Gottesnamens (RKonigs- berg, 1901), p. 132 ff. justifiably violent procedure. Rather may we con- clude that here in any case it was stated that ‘ over the ark the name of Jahweh of Hosts was named,’ z.e. that the Ark stood in the closest relation to Jahweh as the war-God, being the representation and the pledge of His presence. And when, in2S 618, David blesses the people in the name of Jahweh of Hosts, this is the solemn termination of all the arrangements for the conveying of the sacred Ark to Zion, which had thus for their objective Jahweh of Hosts, the war-God. Again, in Ps 24”, the designation of God as ‘ Jahweh of Hosts’ (|| v.8, where He is called a mighty one and a war-hero) is most simply explained by supposing that in this Psalm-fragment the subject is the return of the Ark to the temple from a campaign. (6) While convinced that the above is the true es of Jahweh Zéba@ 6th as an original appellation of the war-God represented by the sacred Ark, we do not mean to deny that another conception gradually established itself in the lin- guistic usage, to such an extent that in many passages the original conception appears to be quite forgotten. This is shown even by the sta- tistics of the employment of the expression. Of the 278 passages in which Jahweh Zéb@ 6th (so 234 times) or another combination with Zéba@’ 6th occur, there are 19 in the Historical books (11 in Samuel, 5 in Kings, but only in, the mouth of prophets; 3 in Chronicles in parallels to Samuel); 15 in the Psalms (in the first book only Ps 24; 14 in the second and third books); while all the other instances are in the Prophetical books. Even if amongst the last named there are a few which might point to Jahweh Zéb@ bth as the war-God, such an interpretation is quite impossible in the vast majority of instances. On the contrary, the addition Zéb@ 6th has plainly attached to it the notion of the supramundane power and glory of Jahweh, It is manifestly so in those passages in which this Divine name stands in parallelism with the notion of the ‘ holiness,’ i.e. (in accordance with the Prophetic use of the term) the absolutely ex- alted being of Jahweh, as in Is 5' 63, How this change of signification is to be understood is not possible to say with certainty. Only so much is clear, that, after the permanent establishment of the Ark in the mysterious darkness of the ady- tum of the temple, its former connexion with the war-God, Jahweh Zéb@éth, must have vanished from the popular consciousness, and that in place of this the awe-inspiring majesty of this God must have come into the foreground. It remains, how- ever, the most plausible supposition that now the hosts of angels and perhaps also (at least in later times) of stars came involuntarily to be substituted for the earthly hosts, so that, finally, the idea of Ruler of the Universe connected itself per se with the title Jahweh Zéb@ bth. In this way we could explain most simply the surprising circumstance that there is no instance of the occurrence of Jahweh Zéb@ 6th in the Book of Ezekiel, although it is met with very frequently in Jeremiah and immediately after the Exile. Ezekiel may have purposely avoided it because it was capable of being misinterpreted as a justification of star- worship. 3. Another weighty question connected with the conception of the Deity is this: Are there to be discovered, even in the pre-Prophetic period, tend- encies towards overcoming the initial crass concep- tion of the bodily form of God, or, in other words, a disposition to fréé the Divine being from the realm of the visible and sensible, and thus to spiritualize it? Now, it is an undeniable fact that the clothing of Jahweh with a body is a practice that still extends into this period. This is proved by the Jahwistic passages Gn 3°: and 638 RELIGION OF ISRAEL RELIGION OF ISRAEL 18' Nevertheless, the answer to the above question must be a decided affirmative, and there are even various methods of distinguishing between the transcendent, unapproachable, real being of Jahweh and the passing appearances which do not completely exhaust His being. (a) To this category certainly belongs the mal’akh Jalaveh or ‘angel of Jahweh’ + in the original sense of that term. is Sense Could never have been mistaken if men had not obstinately persisted in demanding that this theologumenon should have the same sense throughout the whole of the Old Testament—a course to which they were driven on the ground of a mechanical doctrine of inspira- tion. Since, now, in certain late passages the ‘angel of Jahweh’ is undoubtedly, as a creature angel, clearly distinguished from Jahweh, it was thought that he could be also so distinguished in all the earlier passages.{ In reality the ‘angel of Jahweh’ is originally a form of appearance of Jahweh Himself, ‘a temporary descent of the latter to visibility,’ distinguishable from Himself only in so far as it does not represent the full and complete majesty of His being. The circumstance, which has been felt to be very strange, that the expression ‘angel of Jahweh’ is not infrequently suddenly exchanged for the simple ‘Jahweh,’ is ver simply explained. The designation ‘angel of Jahweh’ is necessary wherever he comes (par- ticularly in conversation) into direct contact with men, whereas the simple ‘Jahweh’ is sufficient when God is to be thought of as if by Himself, separate from men or at least unseen by them. Although in some passages this condition of things is obscured by touches of the redactor’s hand, there are others where it is readily recognizable.§ So in Jg 5% ‘Curse Meroz, said the angel of Jahweh {addressing Israel], because they came not to the help of [the invisibly present] Jahweh.’ In like manner, in Gn 167 the God who speaks to Hagar is always called mal’akh Jahweh, whereas, accord- ing to v.", Jahweh Himself has heard her affliction, this being a function for which He did not require a personal meeting with her. In any case, it is quite in the spirit of the narrator when in v.% Hagar discovers in Him who has spoken with her Jahweh Himself. Again, in Gn 21!" (the Elo- histice parallel to the Jahwistic narrative of ch. 16) it is God that hears the voice of the lad, but the angel of God that calls to Hagar out of heaven, etc. And if mv.” it is God that opens her eyes, so that she sees the well of water, this required no ersonal, mechanical operation. On the contrary, it might be accomplished by an act of the Divine will working from afar, and this is plainly the meaning of the narrator. But it is to be observed how here in E a marked spiritualizing of the In Gn 181f there are now, indeed, as has been shown by Kraetzschmar (ZATW, 1897, p. 81ff.), two recensions of the same narrative combined. According to the earlier of these, Jahweh Himself appears, accompanied by two angels; accord- ing to the later (the ‘plural source’) three angels are sent by Jahweh, who Himself abides in heaven (cf. esp. 1924). } The E source of the Pentateuch remains even here true to its principle of avoiding the name ‘ Jahweh,’ and says (but in quite the same sense) mal’akh ’Elohtm (Gn 2117) or mal’akh a- Hlohim, ‘ angel of God’ (Gn 3111, Ex 1419), ¢ The monographs on the mal’akh Jahweh from this stand- point have, of course, now ceased to possess interest. The correct view is represented especially by Kosters (art. ‘De mal'ach Jahve’ in Theol. Tijdschrift, 1875, p. 367 ff.). Only, he goes too far in seeking to explain all appearances of angels (even in the plural, as Gn 2812 322(1)) in pre-exilic passages as self-manifestations of God. § This frequent interchange of ‘Jahweh’ and ‘mal’akh Jahweh’ shatters the (at first sight very plausible) theory that the motion of the ‘angel of Jahweh’ is the necessary conse- quence of Jahweh Himself being supposed to have His dwelling- place at Sinai. Enthroned there, He might be supposed incap- able of appearing elsewhere at the same time. But this is a false assumption. On the contrary, where the angel of Jahweh appears, there is Jahweh also active, but it is only His form of . manifestation that is visible and audible. ancient theologumenon has already taken place. In J the angel of Jahweh evidently meets Hagar at the well personally and in human form; in , on the other hand, he calls to her ‘from heaven.’ The thought of a human body pertaining to Jahweh is thus, if not exactly dropped, forced into the background. The same is true of Gn 22" [where malakh Jahweh, occurring in what is otherwise an uninterrupted Elohistic narrative, can be only a variant for mal’akh Elohim, due to a redactor, and occasioned partes by the redac- tory addition in v.%, which also speaks of the angel of Jahweh]. In Gn 31" (E) the angel of God calls to Jacob ‘in a dream,’ so that here too any allusion to direct personal intercourse is avoided. But the angel of Jahweh expressly iden- tifies himself with the God of Bethel. In this instance, then, there is no possibility of denying a self-revelation of Jahweh in the form of the angel. In the story of Jacob’s wrestling (327) only a ‘man’ is spoken of; but the latter appears to be thought of also as mal’akh Jahweh, for he blesses Jacob, who declares (v.1), ‘God have I seen face to face, and yet have escaped with my life.’— We encounter the mal’akh Jahweh again in Ex 3. Here he appears to Moses as a flame of fire, and thus comes into the realm of the visible. Hence it must be due to a redactor that in v., the Elohistic addition to the Jahwistic v.“ (‘Jahweh saw ’—analogous to Gn 21! ‘Jahweh heard’), it is God Himself and not the angel of God that calls to Moses from the bush. By the way, in the whole of the further transaction (v.) there is not the slightest whisper of doubt that it is God Himself and not some messenger of God that speaks. In precisely the same way as in Gn 16 and 21 may be explained the remarkable interchange of ‘Jahweh’ or ‘God’ and ‘angel of Jahweh’ in Nu 2272-8, The latter opposes the progress of Balaam (vv. 22% 26); he is seen by the ass (vy.™ % 27), and at last by Balaam himself (v.!); it is that speaks to Balaam (vv.5?), and the latter replies to him (v.4), On the other hand, ‘ Jahweh’ gives the ass the faculty of speech (v.%) ; He opens the eyes of Balaam (v.®, cf. the precisely similar case in Gn 21!)—both examples of far-working effects of the power of Jahweh. In Jg 6"#-, again, we have, according to v.™, a personal manifestation of Jahweh. This is called mavakh Jahweh everywhere except in vv. 1% 3; but even in vv.!: 16 the LXX read mal’akh Jahweh, and no doubt this was the original reading, and not an intentional change introduced for the sake of harmony with the text elsewhere. Finally, in Jg 13° the angel of Jahweh, whom the parents of Samson took at first for a man of God, is in- tended to be an appearance of Jahweh Himself, aa is shown not only by v.!8, but quite expressly by v.22, The last passage to which we may claim to appeal in this connexion is Hos 12. ‘Jacob con- tended with God, he contended against a Divine manifestation (malakh),’ ete. The prophet evi- dently avoids naming Jahweh Himself, but his meaning is clearly the same as is intended in the | passage which underlies his reference (see above). Other witnesses to this sense of the expression mal akh Jahweh are to be found in the statements, | summary as they are, of Gn 48'° (EK), Jg 24, | 2 K 1%, and in the mention of the angel of God — (in E parallel with the pillar of cloud in J) in ~ Ex 14%. On Mal 3! see below. It is intelligible how, as the conception of God grew more profound, the above described pale — manifestation, although only temporary and not exhausting the complete being of Jahweh, must have given offence to the religious sense. But this offence was not summarily removed by transform- ing the mal’akh Jahweh into a created angel; on — RELIGION OF ISRAEL RELIGION OF ISRAEL 639 the contrary, men still held fast to a representation as personally present, although (like the malakh of Jahweh, although with a stronger emphasis laid upon the distinction between this and Jahweh imself. Under this head fall certain passages in which it is sometimes hard to say whether we are still to think of a mal’akh Jahweh in the form described above, or simply of a created angel. So in Ex 23° «Truly I anf send my angel before thee, to kcep thee by the way, and to bring thee into the place which I have prepared. Take ye heed of him, and hearken unto his voice; be not rebellious against him, for he will not forgive your transgression ; for my name is in him.’ This last expression means nothing else than ‘for he is a representation of my being’ (see below, p. 640° f.), and is not to be weakened, with Ewald and others, as if it meant only that the angel represents God as the ambassador does the king, and has power to speak in His name; on the contrary, he is him- self essentially Divine. We shall presently see, however, that the ‘name’ of God is not so directly identical with God as could be said of the mal’akh Jahweh. In the same sense as we have just estab- lished for 23°° we are to understand also 32% and 33 [read again, with Luc., ‘my angel’). For in 33% 5 it is said of God Himself that He cannot go up in the midst of the Israelites, for He should have to destroy such a stiff-necked people. Per- haps we ought, finally, to include in this category the passages where’ David is compared to the angel of God (25 1417 ® 1978; on the other hand, 1 S 29° has ‘like an angel of God’). The expression is too general to permit of a certain interpretation. But, seeing that the woman of Tekoa would hardly nave ventured to treat David’s wisdom as equal to the wisdom of God Himself, it is not unlikely that we are here also to think of a representation of Jahweh which is not absolutely identical with Him. On the other hand, ‘the angel of Jahweh’ in 2S 2416 is a creature angel, for Jahweh com- mands him to leave off his work of destruction. The case is similar in 1 K 197 (cf. v.5) and 2 K 19% (Is 37%). Finally, in Ps 3487) 355 we have perhaps eoply the idea of a guardian angel (appointed by od). The theologumenon of the ‘angel of Jahweh’ is wholly wanting in the pre-exilic prophets; and in Zec 14% 31.5%, where it reappears after a long interval, there can be no doubt as to the creaturely character of this ‘angel of Jahweh.’ For he prays to Jahweh, and Jahweh answers him in comforting words. He delivers the Divine commission (1'4) ; he is met by ‘ another angel’ (27) ; and again in 3? [where, in view of v.!, read ‘and the angel of Jahweh said’] he is once more expressly distin- gnished from Jahweh. Ip the considerably later assage, Zec 12°, ‘the angel of Jahweh’ stands in parallelism with ’Eldhim; but the latter term is here manifestly not simply the equivalent of J.whweh, but stands for ‘a supramundane, Divine being’; so that even here ‘the angel of Jahweh’ is kept quite distinct from Jahweh Himself. One might rather be tempted to think of a self-revela- tion of Jahweh in the ‘angel of the covenant’ of Mal 31, seeing that he is named immediately after ‘the Lord,’ i.e. Jahweh. In reality, however, he is coupled with Jahweh only as His attendant and instrument, and thus at the same time distin- guished from Him. (6) Closely akin to the ‘angel of Jahweh,’ in its original sense, we have sometimes the ‘face (o°3.5 panim +) of Jahweh,’ i.e. simply Jahweh Himself The Massoretic text has ‘an angel’ (a8 in Nu 2018); but ‘loubtless we should read, with the Samaritan text and Lucian’s zecension of the LXX, ‘my angel’ (mal’akhi). Ct. even the MT of v.23 ‘For mine angel shall go before thee,’ etc.; and Gn , ‘at where we a‘ready read, ‘ He shall send his angel before ee t A remarkable light is thrown upon this peculiar designation Jahweh) in a form of manifestation which does not exhaust His full being. Unfortunately, the prin- cipal passage which treats of this ¢heologumenon, namely Ex 33, has not been preserved entire, and hence its interpretation is difficult. In the text (v.8#-), which is a combination of various sources and strata of sources, God declares that He cannot [personally] go up in the midst of the people, else He should have to consume them. Israel is much disturbed at this announcement ; but at God’s com- mand the people put off their ornaments, while He announces His intention of considering how He may provide a substitute for His personal presence. After v.° there must have been (from the pen of E) an account of the constructing of the tent and the sacred Ark from the ornaments of the people, for the existence of the tent is all at once assumed in y.”.. The Ark, in fact, which represents Jahweh, is the substitute for His personal presence. When, now, in J’s parallel (v.1"-) God, in answer to Moses’ question whom He means to send with the people, replies (v.14), ‘My face shall go [with you],’ this cannot, in flat opposition to E, mean ‘I in my own erson.’ That is to say, J, as well as E, must have ad in view something secondary, some partial representation of the rull being of Jahweh, whether he, too, thought of the sacred Ark, or the self-mani- festation of God in the form of the mal’akh Jahweh was before his mind’s eye. It is to Ex 33, beyond doubt, that allusion is made in Dt 4%’ and Is 63°. In the latter passage the present text speaks of ‘the angel of his face (panim).’ That would mean the angel in whom His panim, the manifestation of His presence, was found. But we should cer- tainly read, with the LXX, ‘No messenger or angel [read aybin vy], but his face, saved them.’ Here, plainly, panim, as the proper manifestation of Jahweh, is opposed to messengers and angels, who are quite distinct from Him. Yet even the author of Is 63° cannot have regarded the panim of Jahweh as absolutely identical with Him, else he would surely have said simply ‘Jahweh, he saved tiem,’ and not ‘his face saved them.’ In three other passages the pdnim of Jahweh denotes His appearing to execute judgment upon the foes of Israel (Ps 211"), or upon Israel itself (Ps 8017 (4, La 4'° ‘The angry glance of Jahweh hath scattered them’). (c) To the category of forms of Divine mani- festation belongs, further, the “glory (tin kabéd) of Jahweh.’ It is true that no perfectly certain evidence can be adduced of the currency of this theologumenon as early as the pre-Prophetic period. For in the very ancient passage, 1S 4%, kabéd appears to be a designation of Jahweh who dwells in the sacred Ark, and hence belongs to quite a different category from the kabéd in all other pre- exilic passages. In the latter the kabéd is the manifestation-form in which Jahweh on solemn occasions shows Himself to Israel ; it stands, above all, for the brightness which streams from the cloud surrounding Him. It may be that here, too, there was originally a connexion with the thought of the storm-God who appears in dark lightning- flashing clouds (so, probably, still in Ex 331 and Dt 5?! (-), but the abéd may exhibit itself apart from storms (so especially in 1 K 8" || 2 Ch 7 where the kabéd of Jahweh in the form of a. [bright] cloud fills the newly built temple). On by the circumstance that in Carthaginian inscriptions the god: dess Tanit very frequently receives the honorific title ‘Face of Baal’ (péné Ba'al), v.e. personal (as it were, incarnate) repre sentation of the Deity in general. A very thorough examination of the history of this notion will be found in von Gall’s Die Herrlichkeit Gottes: eine biblisch-theologische Untersuchung ausgedehnt tiber das Alte Lestament, die Targume, Apokryphen, Apokalypsen und das Neue Testament, Giessen, 1900, 640 RELIGION OF ISRAEL the other hand, in Is 6? (and so also in Nu 1421¢, Hab 24, and often in the Psalms, e.g. 19?@) 72!) kabéd appears to stand in a much wider sense for the manifestations of the Divine majesty and omnipotence which are displayed in all parts of the earth. Quite a different sense attaches to the kabéd of Jahweh in Ezekiel as well as in Is 40-66 and in the so-called Priests’ Code. Here it is plainly the form itself in which Jahweh, becomes visible, and not simply the temporarily assumed veiling of His real being. This abdd shines like hashmal (Ezk 1°); it rises from its place with a noise like that of a great earthquake (3%), leaves the cherubim- chariot, and approaches the threshold of the temple, so that the temple is filled with the cloud [whieh veils the 4@béd}, and the fore-court with the brightness of the “abéd of Jahweh (9° 104). Then, once more mounting the chariot (10'%, cf. nlso 3” 84), it leaves the city and fixes its abode on the Mount of Olives during the period of judgment and desecration (11°). Thence, when the day of deliverance dawns, it returns by the east door to the temple, and the latter as well as the whole land shines anew in its reflexion. The same conception of the kdbéd as a figure shooting out rays afar is found, although in a somewhat different form, in the Messianic glimpses of Is 40-66. According to 405 it is to show itself as soon as the preparations for the return of the exiles are undertaken ; here, in all probability, it is thought of as the guide at the head of the re- turning band. On the other hand, in 60! the kabéd of Jahweh streams over them (thus appar- ently in heaven) ; in 59 (|| the ‘name of Jahweh,’ see below), again, and in 6618 ka@béd may stand, as in Is 6% ete., for the glorifying of the majesty and omnipotence of Jahweh, which is visible to the whole world. The conception of the kabéd of Jahweh present in Ezk 1-11 and in ch. 48 recurs quite clearly in the Priests’ Code, naturally without the connected notion of the cherubim-chariot. It is enthroned upon Sinai, enveloped in the cloud; but to the eyes of Israel it presents itself as devouring fire (Ex 24166; cf, also Lv 973%, Nu 141° 16!9 20% 8), In Ex 40%4t- and Nu 177[16”] the cloud appears, as it were, as the herald and signal of the kdbéd of Jahweh which appears immediately after it, and fills the Tent of Meeting. Cf. also the discussion of the ‘Glory of Jahweh’ in vol. ii. p. 184 ff. ’ All the theologumena we have just described are . attempts to bridge the gulf between the real being | of Jahweh, which eludes human sight and com- \prehension, and the realm of the visible, which is alone accessible and intelligible to man. One perceives the inadequacy of all comparisons, and pet these cannot be dispensed with so long as the 1uman mind cannot conceive of personal action and influence proceeding except from a _ bodily form (this bodily form, moreover, being always primarily human). Hence it marks a consider- able advance on the old notion of the mal’akh Jahweh when in the theologumena of the panim and the kabéd of Jahweh the thought of a human form is kept as much as possible in the back- ground. Even if Ezekiel (1°) still ventures—in a supplementary sort of fashion—on a comparison of the kabéd of Jahweh with the human form (‘a likeness as the appearance of a man,’ v."5; ‘from that which appeared as his loins,’ v.?”), in Deutero- Isaiah and the Priests’ Code there is no allusion whatever to the form of aman. The only images that are considered worthy to represent the supra- mundane and mysterious being of God are fire (which is, as it were, the least material element) According to the LXX and the Vulgate, this word (bpvin) stands for electron, that is, an amalgam of gold and silver. RELIGION OF ISRAEL and the more than earthly brightness which pro- ceeds from it, and which is rendered tolerable to the human eye onl wy an enveloping cloud. (d@) We have still, however, in this connexion, to speak of a theologwmenon, which likewise aims at distinguishing between the immanent Jahweh and His manifestations and acts, avoiding at the same time all introduction of a bodily form. We refer to the remarkable expressions regarding the ‘name of Jahweh.’ The modern mind finds it hard to realize the profound meaning which a person’s name possessed in the eyes of men, includ- ing the Israelites, in ancient times. Giesebrecht (l.c. P 94) rightly defines a name 98 meaning, according to the ancient conception, ‘a something parallel to the man, relatively independent of its bearer, but of great importance for his weal or his woe, a something which at once describes and influences its bearer.’ He supports this defini tion (id. p. 68 ff.) by very numerous and striking testimonies, derived from the conceptions of other peoples and religions. But what is true of a human name is true also, mutatis mutandis, of the Divine name. To know it is of vital importance, for this is the condition of being able to use it in invocation ; and invocation has, according to primi- tive notions, a real efficacy, giving to the invok- ing party a kind of power over the name invoked, so that he can compel its aid. This explains why, in heathen cults, the name of a particular god was studiously kept secret, lest it might be abused through being invoked by an improper pe Now it is self-evident that in the OT, in the numerous passages, particularly in the Prophets and the Psalms, where the ‘name of Jahweh’ is introduced in various connexions, such crass and superstitious notions as underlie heathen magical formulas are entirely absent. The con- ception of God found in the Prophets (including Deuteronomy, as the specifically Prophetical law- book) and the Psalms permits of no other view than that all those manifold expressions are used from a thoroughly purified religious and ethical standpoint. But, on the other hand, Giesebrecht is certainly right in declaring the (almost univers- ally) current explanation of these expressions to be inadequate, and, in attributing to the ‘name of Jahweh,’ in at least a great number of in- stances, a far deeper meaning. Most are content to explain the ‘name’ as the expression of the character, the connotation of the Divine attri- butes, in so far as these have become known to the Israelites, or have manifested themselves for Cf. Giesebrecht’s monograph, Die alttest. Schdtzung des Gottesnamens und thre religionsgeschichtliche Grundlage (K6nigsberg, 1901), which is at once thorough-going, and opens up a number of new points of view. ‘ +A trace of this notion may be discovered with certainty in Gn 3230 and Jg 1318. In both passages the manifestation of Jahweh (for such is originally meant) declines to give its name, thus escaping, as it were, any further annoyance. It may be, again, that in the Decalogue the commandment not to take Jahweh’s name ‘in vain’ meant originally that men were not to compel action on the part of the sacred name by invoking it. So, too, Am 610 is best explained, with Giesebrecht (p. 128), as expressing a dread of provoking the Heme? enraged Deity still further by uttering His name (cf. also 8%). Consideration is due, finally, to the remark of Giesebrecht (Friede fiir Babet und Bibel, Konigsberg, 1903, p. 41), that the abstract notion ’é, ‘deity,’ is employed so frequently in personal names because, — like the terms expressing relationship, this served as a tion to the Divine name, which might not be uttered. Cf. the — numerous examples of such name-taboos collected from all quarters by Giesebrecht, U.c. p. 88, note 1; see also Fr.zer, Golden Bough 2, i. 403 ff. With the magical and at the same time irresistible efficacy of the solemnly invoked Divine name is plainly connected the firm belief in the terrible power of the cwrse. Thus Abimelech succumbs to the curse of Jotham (Jg 920.57); Micah escai the effects of his mother’s curse by prompt restitution of the money he had stolen from her ; and his mother at once removes the curse by pronouncing a formula of blessing, in which the name of Jahweh is invoked (Jg 171f-); the curse of Elisha ‘in the name of Jahweh’ brings summary destruction upon forty- two children (2 K 274), rotec- RELIGION OF ISRAEL their protection or deliverance. In point of fact, a number of frequently employed expressions are more or less satisfactorily explained in this way (e.g. when we read of proclaiming, praising, cele- brating, glorying in, the name of God); there are even others where the name appears to be in- tended only in the sense familiar to us—as a com- bination of particular sounds (so in all connexions where a pronouncing of the Divine name is spoken of, such as calling upon, profaning, blaspheming the name, or putting it [in blessing] upon any one, Nu 6%”, Ps 1298). But there remains a very large number of passages in which these two methods of interpretation, so far from being satisfactory, yield no sense at all—passages in which the name, in short, appears to be identical with the person of God. This applies where such expressions as ‘fear,’ ‘love,’ ‘honour,’ ‘confess,’ ‘trust in,’ ‘ wait for,’ are prefixed to the name of God. That a manifestation-form of Jahweh as present to help is here thought of, is evident from such instances as Ps 20?) (‘the name of the God of Jacob defend thee !’) 44°) (‘through thy name we tread down our foes,’ ef. 1181-2) 548 (< help me, O God, through thy name,’ cf. 1248), Pr 18° (‘a strong tower is the name of Jahweh’). If in the above passages the ‘name’ is really a personified ‘power placed side by side with the proper person of Jahweh’ (Giesebrecht, J.c. p. 66), this throws a clear/light not only upon the above (p. 6397) cited passage Ex 237) (‘My name is in him’), but also upen the expressions just noticed, such as ‘call upon, praise, thank, the name of Jahweh.’ They refer not to the name ‘ Jahweh’ as the pronunciation of certain sounds, but to the ‘power’ which has become hypostatized in it; otherwise, passages like Ps 548 («I will declare to the praise of thy name, Jahweh, that it is good, that it hath delivered me out of all trouble’) would be quite unintelligible. All the more intelligible, on the other hand, be- come the very numerous passages which speak of a localizing of the name at particular sanctuaries, notably at the temple in Jerusalem. Favourite forms of expression with Deuteronomy and with the Deuteronomic redactors of the Historical books are, that Jahweh ‘causes’ His name ‘ to dwell’ in the temple, or ‘sets’ it in the place chosen by Him, or that ‘a house is built for his name,’ so that now He is to dwell for ever at Jerusalem (2 K 2377, 2 Ch 334). It might be supposed that this applica- tion of the ‘name of Jahweh’ took its rise in the age of Deuteronomy, perhaps because the purified Prophetical conception of God urgently demanded such a distinction between the unapproachable, immanent Jahweh and His earthly forms of mani- festation. But that this was not so is shown by Ex 20%, which stands at the very head of the Book of the Covenant: ‘In every spot [more exactly, “at every place of worship’] where I will cause my name to be remembered [7.e. simply, ‘where I will cause my ‘‘name” to be honoured as a mani- festation of my being localized there’), will I come to thee and bless thee.’ Weare thus entitled not only to regard the theologumenon of the ‘name of Jahweh’ as one of the most significant attempts at distinguishing between the real essential being of Jahweh and His more or less perfect manifesta- tion-forms—analogous to the angel, the face, and the glory, of Jahweh—but to carry it back even to the pre- Prophetic period of the religion of Israel. Nay, in this very period the belief in a magical efficacy of the name must have played a more important role than later, when men, while laying emphasis upon the ‘name’ in expressions The most striking instance of this usage would be found in Is 3027 (‘The name of Jahweh cometh from afar, glowing is his anger,’ etc.), if the text has come down to us correct.